Choosing Your Online Degree

Tips on choosing your online degree

When choosing your online degree, we recommend you to first of all answer to the following, typical online degree questions:

What is your learning and e-learning preferred style or type and how does it fit into the various online degree programs you are considering?

Are you just looking for a short course for the sake of personal educational richness or do you really need a whole online study program leading to degree obtention?

Therefore, do credits matter a lot to you when joining an online degree course ? And, how do the various programs you are considering perform on this issue?

Do you feel more comfortable with a self-study online degree program or with an instructor-led online degree course?

Do you prefer online degree programs allowing for open entry or those with a conventional schedule matching the on-campus conventional calendar of studies?

Is there enough study-support in the online degree programs you are considering?

How much money can you spend, and how affordable are the various online degree programs ?

The best tip we can give you is to carefully go through the questions above and study the various options for online degree programs in the light of what you learn by answering them. Some further tips are:

Contact the online degree provider well in advance.

Check the online degree provider's accreditation. If a provider is accredited, its programs have been reviewed and accepted by a regional or federal governing body as providing quality education. Also, accredited institutions are approved to award federal financial aid.

See if the online degree provider accepts any previous credits you may have earned elsewhere. If you've earned credits at another institution, it would be better for you if they could be transferred to your new institution.

Find out about grants and student loans that may apply to you.

Contact the online degree provider well in advance.

See if a syncronous or an asyncronous program is your best option. See our Glossary.

Make sure you don't have to complete a part of the course on-campus. Some online degree and distance education providers have residency requirements. That is, they have requirements about the number of credits you must take at the institution.

It is difficult to get through an entire online degree without needing to talk to an advisor, check a book out from the library, etc. Make sure the online degree provider will support your needs as a student.

Also, it is important that you check what kind of online class interaction you will get. In regular classroom settings, you can ask the teacher questions. Will the classes you are taking from the online degree provider have similar opportunities for you to interact with your online instructors (via email, chat rooms, videoconferencing, etc.)?

See if all the online degree delivery methods fit your preferences. Some courses are not fully online but include other delivery methods as well. These can be anything from satellite TV to pre-taped lectures. Check with your online degree provider before signing up for a program that is delivered to you in a way you can't accept.

Visit the online degree provider's public forums and learn about current students and their experience in that particular educational institution.